Locality based content distribution

ABSTRACT

A system and method for content distribution are provided. A content provider generates a network topology having one or more subnetworks made up of content sources. The content provider segments content, such as applications, into segments for distribution. The content provider then distributes the content such that for each identified subnetwork, each content segment is distributed to a content source. Subsequent, client computing device requests for content can be serviced by selecting a content source in a particular subnetwork selected for delivering the requested content to the client computing device to minimize traffic flow of the requested content through the nodes of the distribution network.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/734,959, entitled “LOCALITY BASED CONTENT DISTRIBUTION” and filedJan. 6, 2020, which in turn is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 16/222,389, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,530,874, entitled “LOCALITYBASED CONTENT DISTRIBUTION” and filed Dec. 17, 2018, which in turn is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/891,995, now U.S.Pat. No. 10,158,729, entitled “LOCALITY BASED CONTENT DISTRIBUTION” andfiled on Feb. 8, 2018, which in turn is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/483,659, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,894,168, entitled“LOCALITY BASED CONTENT DISTRIBUTION” and filed on Apr. 10, 2017, whichin turn is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/139,239, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,621,660, entitled “LOCALITY BASEDCONTENT DISTRIBUTION” and filed on Apr. 26, 2016, which in turn is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/639,933, now U.S.Pat. No. 9,332,078, entitled “LOCALITY BASED CONTENT DISTRIBUTION” andfiled on Mar. 5, 2015, which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/888,283, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,009,286, entitled“LOCALITY BASED CONTENT DISTRIBUTION” and filed on May 6, 2013, which inturn is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/614,714,now U.S. Pat. No. 8,438,263, entitled “LOCALITY BASED CONTENTDISTRIBUTION” and filed on Sep. 13, 2012, which in turn is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/296,189, now U.S.Pat. No. 8,275,874, entitled “LOCALITY BASED CONTENT DISTRIBUTION” andfiled Nov. 14, 2011, which in turn is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/170,102, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,060,561, entitled“LOCALITY BASED CONTENT DISTRIBUTION” and filed on Jun. 27, 2011, whichin turn is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/060,124, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,970,820, entitled “LOCALITY BASEDCONTENT DISTRIBUTION” and filed on Mar. 31, 2008, the disclosures ofwhich are incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

Generally described, computing devices and communication networks can beutilized to exchange information. In a common application, a computingdevice can request content from another computing device via thecommunication network. For example, a user at a personal computingdevice can utilize a software browser application to request a Web pagefrom a server computing device via the Internet. In such embodiments,the user computing device can be referred to as a client computingdevice and the server computing device can be referred to as a contentprovider.

Content providers are generally motivated to provide requested contentto client computing devices often with consideration of efficienttransmission of the requested content to the client computing deviceand/or consideration of a cost associated with the transmission of thecontent. For larger scale implementations, a content provider mayreceive content requests from a high volume of client computing deviceswhich can place a strain on the content provider's computing resources.Additionally, the content requested by the client computing devices mayhave a number of components, which can further place additional strainon the content provider's computing resources.

With reference to an illustrative example, a requested Web page, ororiginal content, may be associated with a number of additionalresources, such as images or videos, which are to be displayed with theWeb page. In one specific embodiment, the additional resources of theWeb page are identified by a number of embedded resource identifiers,such as uniform resource locators (“URLs”). In turn, software on theclient computing devices typically processes embedded resourceidentifiers to generate requests for the content. Often, the resourceidentifiers associated with the embedded resources reference a computingdevice associated with the content provider such that the clientcomputing device would transmit the request for the additional resourcesto the referenced content provider computing device. Accordingly, inorder to satisfy a content request, the content provider would provideclient computing devices data associated with the Web page as well asthe data associated with the embedded resources.

In one embodiment, a content provider can utilize additional contentsources as part of a content distribution network to provide data toclient computing devices. Examples of the additional content sourcesthat can be part of the content distribution network includenetwork-based storage resources or points of presence, edge networkcomputing devices, peer or registered computing devices, and the like.Traditional content distribution networks can become deficient, however,with the repetitive transmission of requested content (per a clientcomputing device request) across network resource nodes (e.g., routers).For example, randomized selection of a distributed network contentsource can result the transmission of content across a number ofdistribution network nodes. Such inefficiencies can result in contentdistribution bottlenecks for the content distribution network.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of thisinvention will become more readily appreciated as the same become betterunderstood by reference to the following detailed description, whentaken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrative of content delivery environmentincluding a number of client computing devices, content provider,various third party content providers, and a content delivery networkservice provider;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the content delivery environment of FIG. 1illustrating the registration of third party content provider with acontent provider;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrative of a model of a content providerdistribution network;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the content delivery environment of FIG. 1illustrating the generation and processing of a content request from aclient computing device to a content provider;

FIGS. 5A-5C are block diagrams of the content delivery environment ofFIG. 1 illustrating the generation of content requests by a clientcomputing device to a content source corresponding to content sources ofa subnetwork corresponding to a content provider distribution network;

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrative of a content distribution routineimplemented by a content provider;

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrative of a request routing routineimplemented by a content provider; and

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram illustrative a resource request processingroutine implemented by a client computing device for generating contentrequests to a content source corresponding to a subnetwork of a contentprovider distribution network.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Generally described, the present disclosure is directed to themanagement and processing of resource requests made by client computingdevices. Specifically, aspects of the disclosure will be described withregard to the utilization, by a content provider, of topologyinformation to define various subnetworks of content sources for acontent distribution network. The content provider then distributescontent to the content sources in each of the subnetworks such thatcontent can be made available to requesting client computing devicesfrom any of the subnetworks.

In one embodiment, as client computing device content requests areprocessed, the content provider provides an identification of contentsources that are capable of providing the requested content (or portionsthereof). The client computing devices can then request the content (orcontent portions) from the identified content sources. Alternatively,the client computing devices can identify the appropriate contentproviders without requiring the identification information from thecontent provider, such as through the utilization of a communicationprotocol. In both embodiments, the content sources that are identifiedto receive the content request are selected in a manner to minimize thenetwork traffic associated with the content request through the nodes ofthe content provider distribution network. Although various aspects ofthe disclosure will be described with regard to illustrative examplesand embodiments, one skilled in the art will appreciate that thedisclosed embodiments and examples should not be construed as limiting.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrative of content delivery environment100 for the management and processing of content requests. Asillustrated in FIG. 1 , the content delivery environment 100 includes anumber of client computing devices 102 (generally referred to asclients) for requesting content from a content provider and/or a CDNservice provider. In an illustrative embodiment, the client computingdevices 102 can correspond to a wide variety of computing devicesincluding personal computing devices, laptop computing devices,hand-held computing devices, terminal computing devices, mobile devices,wireless devices, various electronic devices and appliances and thelike. In an illustrative embodiment, the client computing devices 102include necessary hardware and software components for establishingcommunications over a communication network 108, such as a wide areanetwork or local area network. For example, the client computing devices102 may be equipped with networking equipment and browser softwareapplications that facilitate communications via the Internet or anintranet. Although the client computing devices 102 may be described inaccordance with a client-server network model, one skilled in therelevant art will appreciate that the client computing devices 102correspond to computing devices acquiring content from another computingdevices, including, but not limited to, client-server network models,peer-to-peer network models, and the like.

The content delivery environment 100 can also include a content provider104 in communication with the one or more client computing devices 102via the communication network 108. The content provider 104 illustratedin FIG. 1 corresponds to a logical association of one or more computingdevices associated with a content provider. Specifically, the contentprovider 104 can include a web server component 110 corresponding to oneor more server computing devices for obtaining and processing requestsfor content (such as Web pages) from the client computing devices 102.The content provider 104 can further include an origin server component112 and associated storage component 114 corresponding to one or morecomputing devices for obtaining and processing requests for networkresources from the distributed network content sources. One skilled inthe relevant art will appreciate that the content provider 104 can beassociated with various additional computing resources, such additionalcomputing devices for administration of content and resources, DNS nameservers, and the like. For example, although not illustrated in FIG. 1 ,the content provider 104 can be associated with one or more DNS nameserver components that would be authoritative to resolve clientcomputing device DNS queries corresponding to a domain of the contentprovider.

With continued reference to FIG. 1 , the content delivery environment100 can further include a CDN service provider 106 in communication withthe one or more client computing devices 102 and the content providers104 via the communication network 108. The CDN service provider 106illustrated in FIG. 1 corresponds to a logical association of one ormore computing devices associated with a CDN service provider.Specifically, the CDN service provider 106 can include a number of Pointof Presence (“POP”) locations 116, 122, 128 that correspond to nodes onthe communication network 108. Each POP 116, 122, 128 includes a DNScomponent 118, 124, 130 made up of a number of DNS server computingdevices for resolving DNS queries from the client computers 102. EachPOP 116, 122, 128 also includes a resource cache component 120, 126, 132made up of a number of cache server computing devices for storingresources from content providers and transmitting various requestedresources to various client computers. The DNS components 118, 124, and130 and the resource cache components 120, 126, 132 may further includeadditional software and/or hardware components that facilitatecommunications including, but not limited, load balancing or loadsharing software/hardware components.

In an illustrative embodiment, the DNS component 118, 124, 130 andresource cache component 120, 126, 132 are considered to be logicallygrouped, regardless of whether the components, or portions of thecomponents, are physically separate. Additionally, although the POPs116, 122, 128 are illustrated in FIG. 1 as logically associated with theCDN service provider 106, the POPs will be geographically distributedthroughout the communication network 108 in a manner to best servevarious demographics of client computing devices 102. Additionally, oneskilled in the relevant art will appreciate that the CDN serviceprovider 106 can be associated with various additional computingresources, such additional computing devices for administration ofcontent and resources, and the like.

The content delivery environment 100 can further include a number ofthird party content providers 134 that are registered with the contentprovider 104 (directly or indirectly). The content provider 104 canutilize the third party content providers 134 to provide content, orcontent portions, as peer computing devices to requesting clientcomputing devices 102 as will be described in greater detail below. Thethird party content providers 134 can correspond to a wide variety ofcomputing devices including personal computing devices, laptop computingdevices, hand-held computing devices, terminal computing devices, mobiledevices, wireless devices, various electronic devices and appliances andthe like. In an illustrative embodiment, the client computing devices102 include necessary hardware and software components for establishingcommunications over a communication network 108, such as a wide areanetwork or local area network. Additionally, the third party contentproviders 134 can include additional hardware and/or software componentsfor delivering content to other computing devices via the communicationnetwork 108, such as Web server computing device, proxy server computingdevice, etc. As will be explained in greater detail below, the thirdparty content providers 134 can obtain content specifically fordistribution to client computing devices 102. In still a furtherembodiment, the third party content providers 134 can also be clientcomputing devices 102 that have registered with the content provider 104and can provide previously downloaded content to other client computingdevices 102.

Even further, the content delivery environment 100 can include anetwork-based memory 136 which can be utilized by the content provider104 and/or CDN service provider 106 to manage content.

One skilled in the relevant art will appreciate that the components andconfigurations provided in FIG. 1 are illustrative in nature.Additionally, one skilled in the relevant art will appreciate that theCDN provider 106, third party providers 134 and/or network-based storage136 may be omitted altogether from the content delivery environment 100.Still further, the CDN provider 106, third party providers 134 and/ornetwork-based storage 136 may be affiliated directly with the contentprovider 104 or indirectly serve as at least partial content stores inthe content distribution network. Accordingly, additional or alternativecomponents and/or configurations, especially regarding the additionalcomponents, systems and subsystems for facilitating communications maybe utilized.

With reference now to FIGS. 2-5 , the interaction between variouscomponents of the content delivery environment 100 of FIG. 1 will beillustrated. For purposes of the example, however, the illustration hasbeen simplified such that many of the components utilized to facilitatecommunications are not shown. One skilled in the relevant art willappreciate that such components can be utilized and that additionalinteractions would accordingly occur without departing from the spiritand scope of the present disclosure.

With reference to FIG. 2 , an illustrative interaction for registrationof third party content providers 134 with the content provider 104 willbe described. As will be described in greater detail below, the contentprovider 104 can utilize the third party content providers 134 toprovide content to requesting client computing devices. As illustratedin FIG. 2 , the content hosting registration process begins withregistration of the third party content providers 134 with the contentprovider 104. In an illustrative embodiment, the third party contentproviders 134 utilize a registration application program interface(“API”) to register with the content provider 104 such that the thirdparty content providers 134 can provide content on behalf of the contentprovider 104 or the CDN service provider 106 on behalf of the contentprovider 104. The registration API includes the identification of thecomputing devices associated with the third party content providers 134that will provide requested resources on behalf of the content provider104. Additionally, the registration API can include additionalidentification information used by the content provider 104 to identifycontent previously downloaded by the third party content providers 134and that is available for downloading by other client computing devices102.

One skilled in the relevant art will appreciate that upon registration,the content provider 104 can begin to direct requests for content fromclient computing devices 102 to the third party content providers 134.With continued reference to FIG. 2 , upon receiving the registrationAPI, the content provider 104 obtains and processes the registrationinformation. In an illustrative embodiment, the content provider 104 canuse the registration information to identify the criteria used to directclient computing device content requests to the specific third partycontent provider 134. As will be described in greater detail below, inone embodiment, the content provider 104 selects content sources, suchas third party content providers 134, as a function of a model of thenetwork topology of the content provider's distribution network. Forexample, the content provider 104 can select a content source accordingto a network proximity to a client computing device 102 that mitigatesthe number of distribution network nodes that are traversed by dataexchanged between the client computing device and an identified contentsource, such as a third party content provider 134.

In another embodiment, the content provider 104 can use additionalinformation, in conjunction with the network topology information, toselect an appropriate third party registration server (and other contentsource). The content provider 104 can also use the registrationinformation to identify content previously downloaded by the third partycontent providers 134 (such as acting in the capacity as a clientcomputing device 102). In still a further embodiment, the contentprovider 104 can also use the registration information to establish, orotherwise confirm, financial or account information that the contentprovider 104 will utilize to reconcile with the third party contentprovider 134 for content provided to client computing devices. Forexample, the financial or account information can correspond to accountinformation for a particular financial institution, user identifiers foradditional third party services utilized to exchange value betweenparties, or other information utilized in accordance with a particulartype of reconciliation used between the content provider 104 and thethird party content provider 134. One skilled in the relevant art willappreciate that various types of additional information may be generatedor collected by the content provider 104.

The content provider 104 returns a confirmation of the registration ofthe third party content provider 134. Additionally, in an illustrativeembodiment, the content provider 104 can begin providing content to thethird party content provider 134, or instructions for downloadingcontent from a cache server component of a POP, such as POP 116, of aCDN provider 106. An illustrative routine for the distribution ofcontent to content sources, such as third party content providers 134,will be described below with regard to FIG. 6 . The third party contentprovider 134 obtains the confirmation and begins performing anyadditional activity in correspondence with the confirmed registration,such as preparing previously downloaded content or downloadingidentified content in anticipation of incoming requests from the clientcomputing devices 102.

Turning now to FIG. 3 , in an illustrative embodiment, the contentprovider 104 may utilize network topology information to generate amodel of the distribution network 300 for purposes of distributingcontent to content sources and associating client computing devices withcontent sources. As illustrated in FIG. 3 , the model 300 can correspondto a multi-level network in which a plurality of computing devices aregrouped into a first level. The computing devices can correspond tocontent sources that provide content to other computing devices.Additionally, the computing devices can also correspond to clientcomputing devices 102 that request content from content sources. Thus,each computing device may act as a content source only, a clientcomputing device only, or a combination of content source and clientcomputing device. Accordingly, the computing devices will be generallyreferred to as client/content sources 302. The first level nodes (nodes302A-302E) are grouped according to shared nodal connections in thedistribution network, such as nodes 304A, 304B and 304C. As illustratedin FIG. 3 , nodes 304A-304C represent a second level in the distributionnetwork model 300. Nodes 304A-304C may correspond to networkingequipment, such as routers, switch, etc. In such an embodiment, routernode 304A would be considered a parent node to children client/contentsource nodes 302A, 302B and 302C and router node 304C would beconsidered a parent node to children client/content source nodes 302Dand 302E.

In a similar manner, the second level nodes, nodes 304A-C, may also begrouped together to form a subnetwork of the distribution network forproviding content based on common network node configurations. Forexample, nodes 304A-C may represent children nodes of a datacenter node,such as node 306. Still further, third level node, such as node 306, maybe grouped with other node(s) not illustrated in the distributionnetwork model 300 to be considered as a subnetwork of the distributionnetwork for providing content. In an illustrative embodiment, thedistribution network model 300 can include any number of levels andsubnetworks. Accordingly, the nodes and subnetworks illustrated in FIG.3 are illustrative in nature and should not be construed as limiting.

As previously described, the content provider 104 can distribute contentto the content sources 302 in the defined distribution networksubnetworks such that copies of the content, which may be segmented, canbe found and provided to client computing devices 102 from thesubnetworks. Accordingly, the content provider 104 may distributecontent to the various third party computing devices in the subnetworksas part of the processing of client computing device requests or inanticipation of client computing device requests. For example, if acontent provider 104 would need to distribute an application, thecontent provider would provide an identification of the varioussubnetworks in the distribution network (such as the subnetworksrepresented by nodes 302A-302C and 302D-302E, respectively) anddistribute the application to the subnetwork as a whole. In turn, a copyof the application, either in whole or as a set of content segments,would reside in one or more of the client/content sources 302. Anillustrative routine for distributing content will be described withregard to FIG. 6 .

In an illustrative embodiment, the content provider 104 selects (orprovides an identification of) specific subnetwork(s) utilized toprovide the content to the client computing devices 102 as a function ofa network proximity to the client computing device among other factors.With reference to FIG. 3 , the selection of a subnetwork can correspondto an identification of the specific subnetwork (and a correspondingcontent source) in which the client computing device 102 resides. Insuch an embodiment, the information flow through the nodes of thedistribution network associated with the delivery of content would beminimized because of the close nodal proximity. For example, assume thatif the content provider 104 would wish to distribute an application toevery computing device in the distribution network, a copy of theapplication would initially be distributed to a single computing devicein each subnetwork (as described above). In accordance with the presentdisclosure, each additional client/content source could then attempt toacquire the application from another client/content source within thesame defined subnetwork. By limiting content sources to within the samedefined subnetwork, or a subnetwork with a close network proximity, theamount of information corresponding to the application passed throughother nodes in the distribution would be minimized. If the clientcomputing device and the content sources are child nodes, the responsivecontent information would only pass through one additional node, such asa router node.

With reference now to FIG. 4 , after completion of the registrationprocesses illustrated in FIG. 2 , a client computing device 102subsequently generates a content request that is received and processedby the content provider 104, such as through the Web server 110. Inaccordance with an illustrative embodiment, the request for content canbe in accordance with common network protocols, such as the hypertexttransfer protocol (“HTTP”). Upon receipt of the content request, thecontent provider 104 identifies the appropriate responsive content. Inan illustrative embodiment, the requested content can correspond to aWeb page that is displayed on the client computing device 102 via theprocessing of information, such as hypertext markup language (“HTML”),extensible markup language (“XML”), and the like. The requested contentcan also include a number of embedded resource identifiers thatcorrespond to resource objects that should be obtained by the clientcomputing device 102 as part of the processing of the requested content.The embedded resource identifiers can be generally referred to asresource identifiers or resource URLs. In one embodiment, the clientcomputing device 102 may process the requested content and automaticallybegin requesting the resources identified by the resource URLs.Alternatively, the requested content may correspond to a list ofavailable content, in which the client computing device 102 generatesrequests for the content (as represented by resource URLs) in responseto a user selection. Still further, although the client computing device102 requests have been described in conjunction with a Web page contentrequest, one skilled in the relevant art will appreciate that thecontent request may originate from a number of other sources/approachesand the content request interaction illustrated in FIG. 4 may beomitted.

With reference now to FIGS. 5A and 5B, alternative steps implemented bya client computing device 102 to obtain requested content (e.g., contentcorresponding to the embedded URLs) from the content provider 104 willbe described. With reference to FIG. 5A, the client computing device 102initiates a resource request. The resource request can correspond to avariety of network communication protocols, including but not limited,to hypertext transfer protocol (“HTTP”), file transfer protocol (“ftp”),and any one of a variety of communications protocols. In turn, thecontent provider 104 processes the content request and providesidentification information that includes a set of network addresses ofcontent sources. Examples of the identification information could be inthe form of a list of content sources, metadata identifying contentsource (e.g., a torrent file), and the like. The identificationinformation is then returned to the client computing device 102. Aspreviously described, in one embodiment, the identification informationgenerated by the content provider 104 can be processed in an attempt tominimize the traffic through the distribution network nodes.

With continued reference to FIG. 5A, in addition to the set of networkaddresses, the content provider 104 also provides reconciliationinformation, such as electronic tokens, for use by the third partycontent providers 134. In an illustrative embodiment, the reconciliationinformation will be provided accompanied by any resource requestsubmitted by the client computing device 102 to an identified thirdparty content provider 134. For additional security/integrity purposes,the content provider 104 can include additional information in theelectronic tokens, such as a client computing device identifierinformation, timestamp information, third party content provider 134identifiers, information based on such information, and the like. Forexample, a client computing device identifier can be incorporated intothe electronic information, such as via a hashing algorithm, in aneffort to limit unauthorized duplication of the electronic tokens orfraudulent or repetitive reconciliations by a third party contentprovider 134. One skilled in the relevant art will appreciate that anyone of a variety of electronic token, micropayment, or credit managementmethodologies may be incorporated in the content delivery environment100 for reconciling content provided by a third party content provider134.

With reference now to FIG. 5B, the client computing device 102 utilizesthe information provided by the content provider 104 and transmitscontent requests to the identified content sources. If the contentsource is a third party content provider 134, the content requests caninclude the reconciliation information to be used by the third partycontent provider 134 to reconcile with the content provider 104 (eitherdirectly or through a proxy).

With reference now to FIG. 5C, in an alternative embodiment, the clientcomputing device 102 does not transmit an initial request to the contentprovider 104 to obtain an identification of the available contentsources. In this embodiment, the client computing device 102 mayimplement some additional processing that facilitates the identificationof the appropriate content source. For example, the client computingdevice could utilize a hashing algorithm that determines the contentsource based, as least in part, on a hash of a client identifier orclient identification information. As described in FIG. 5C, the clientcomputing device 102 then utilizes the information it calculated andtransmits content requests to the identified content sources. If thecontent source is a third party content provider 134, the contentrequests can include the reconciliation information to be used by thethird party content provider 134 to reconcile with the content provider104 (either directly or through a proxy).

With reference now to FIG. 6 , an illustrative content distributionroutine 600 implemented by the content provider 104 will be described.At block 602, the content provider 104 associates the requested contentinto a set of segments. As previously described, the requested contentcan be subdivided into a number of content segments or content chunksutilizing a variety of methodologies. At block 604, the content provider104 obtains network topology information for the distribution network.As illustrated in FIG. 3 , in an illustrative embodiment, the networktopology information can correspond to a model 300 that defines variousdistribution network subnetworks including one or more client/contentsources 302.

At block 606, the content provider 104 selects a first distributionsubnetwork as defined in the model 300. As previously described, thedefinition of the subnetwork can correspond to a grouping of nodes ofthe distribution network and can correspond to more than one level of adistribution network. At block 608, the content provider 104 designatesat least one client/content source within the subnetwork to bedistributed the designated content segment. At decision block 610, atest is conducted to determine whether additional content segments inthe content are to be distributed. If so, the routine 600 returns toblock 606 to designate at least client/content source to receive theadditional segments. In one embodiment, the same client/content sourcewithin a single subnetwork may be utilized to maintain all the contentsegments. Alternative, in another embodiment, the content segments maybe distributed to various client/content sources within a subnetwork inaccordance with a variety of distribution techniques including, but notlimited, round robin selection, random selection, load balancing, etc.

Once all the content segments have been distributed within a subnetwork,at decision block 612, a test is conducted to determine whetheradditional subnetworks exist in the distribution network. If so, atblock 614, the content provider 104 selects a next subnetwork in thedistribution network and the routine 600 returns to block 606 in whichall the content segments will be distributed to clients/content sourcesin the next subnetwork. Once there are no remaining subnetworks in thedistribution network at decision block 612, the routine 600 terminatesat block 616.

With reference now to FIG. 7 , one embodiment of a content requestprocessing routine 700 implemented by the content provider 104 forprocessing a resource request from a client computing device 102 will bedescribed. At block 702, the content provider 104 receives a contentrequest from the client computing device 102. As previously described,the embedded URLs can correspond to content to be requested inconjunction with a Web page provided by the content provider 104. In anillustrative embodiment, the client computing device 102 may correspondto client/content source in the distribution network topology.

At block 704, the content provider 104 associates the requested contentinto one or more content segments. As previously described, therequested content can be subdivided into a number of content segments orcontent chunks utilizing a variety of methodologies. At block 706, thecontent provider 104 identifies one or more client/content sources thatcan provide the requested content segment or content chunk. In anillustrative embodiment, the determination of which clients/contentsources can be a function of the content previously provided by thecontent provider 104. Additionally, or alternatively, the determinationof which third party content providers 134 and/or resource cachecomponents can be a function of network proximity. In an illustrativeembodiment, the network proximity can be defined in terms of adetermination of the minimal number of content distribution nodes thatthe requested content would traverse between the client computing deviceand the potential content source. At decision block 708, a test isconducted to determine whether additional resource segments exist. Ifso, the routine 700 returns to block 706 for an identification ofadditional client/content sources for the additional resource segments.One skilled in the relevant art will appreciate, however, that routine700 may be implemented in a manner such that the content provider 104identifies third party content providers 134 and/or resource cachecomponents for the requested content as a whole and not for contentsegments.

Once all the appropriate client/content sources have been identified, atblock 710, the content provider 104 transmits identification andappropriate reconciliation information (e.g., electronic tokens)responsive to the client computing device 102 request. As previouslydescribed, the identification information may be in the form of a listor as metadata that can be processed by the client computing device.

In the event that one or more of the client/content sources correspondsto third party content provider 134, at block 712, the content provider104 obtains reconciliation requests from one or more third party contentproviders 134. For purposes of this illustrative embodiment, it isassumed that the client computing device 102 has been successful inobtaining at least one content segment or content chunk from a thirdparty content provider 134. As previously discussed, the third partycontent providers 134 may transmit the reconciliation requests uponcompletion of a content segment download to a client computing device102 or alternatively, asynchronously, such as in a batch processing. Thereconciliation requests can also include additional metric informationor utilization information collected by the third party content provider134 in processing the resource request from the client computing device102.

At block 714, the content provider 104 reconciles with the third partycontent providers 134. As previously disclosed, the content provider 104can reconcile in a variety of manners. In one example, the contentprovider 104 may credit a financial institution account associated withthe third party content provider 134 or cause such an account to becredited. In another example, the content provider 104 may interfacewith a network resource, such as Web service or Web site, to have acredit provided to an account or profile associated with third partycontent provider 134 (e.g., a rewards program). In still anotherexample, the content provider 104 may increment tracking informationthat tracks the transaction information. Such tracking information maybe utilized by either the content provider 104 or the third partycontent provider 134 at a later date. At block 716, the routine 700terminates.

With reference now to FIG. 8 , a request routing processing routine 800implemented by a client computing device 102 will be described. At block802, the client computing device 102 transmits a content request to thecontent provider 104. As previously stated, in an illustrativeembodiment, the content request corresponds to the processing ofembedded URLs in content (e.g., a Web page) provided by the contentprovider 104. At block 804, the client computing device 102 obtains aset of network addresses from the content provider 104 in resolution ofthe DNS query content provider 104 that are responsive to the clientrequest. As previously described, the set of network addressescorresponds to an identification of client/content sources that canprocess the resource request from the client computing device 102.Additionally, the set of network addresses may be prioritized orfiltered based of the network proximity of the potential content sourcesto the client computing device. As previously discussed, in anillustrative embodiment, the requested content can be divided intovarious content segments or content chunks. Accordingly, the set ofnetwork addresses can be specified for each identifiable content segmentor content chunk or alternatively, for the cumulative set of contentsegments/chunks.

At block 806, the client computing device 102 transmits a request forcontent to the identified content sources in the set of networkaddresses. Additionally, the request for content can include theadditional reconciliation information that will be utilized by the thirdparty content provider 134 to reconcile with the content provider 104.At decision block 808, a test is conducted to determine whetheradditional content segments are to be requested. If so, the routine 800returns to block 806 for request of the content from the contentsources. If not, or if the content is otherwise not able to besegmented, the routine terminates at block 810.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art and others that allof the functions described in this disclosure may be embodied insoftware executed by one or more processors of the disclosed componentsand mobile communication devices. The software may be persistentlystored in any type of non-volatile storage.

Conditional language, such as, among others, “can,” “could,” “might,” or“may,” unless specifically stated otherwise, or otherwise understoodwithin the context as used, is generally intended to convey that certainembodiments include, while other embodiments do not include, certainfeatures, elements and/or steps. Thus, such conditional language is notgenerally intended to imply that features, elements and/or steps are inany way required for one or more embodiments or that one or moreembodiments necessarily include logic for deciding, with or without userinput or prompting, whether these features, elements and/or steps areincluded or are to be performed in any particular embodiment.

Any process descriptions, elements, or blocks in the flow diagramsdescribed herein and/or depicted in the attached figures should beunderstood as potentially representing modules, segments, or portions ofcode which include one or more executable instructions for implementingspecific logical functions or steps in the process. Alternateimplementations are included within the scope of the embodimentsdescribed herein in which elements or functions may be deleted, executedout of order from that shown or discussed, including substantiallyconcurrently or in reverse order, depending on the functionalityinvolved, as would be understood by those skilled in the art. It willfurther be appreciated that the data and/or components described abovemay be stored on a computer-readable medium and loaded into memory ofthe computing device using a drive mechanism associated with a computerreadable storing the computer executable components such as a CD-ROM,DVD-ROM, or network interface further, the component and/or data can beincluded in a single device or distributed in any manner. Accordingly,general purpose computing devices may be configured to implement theprocesses, algorithms and methodology of the present disclosure with theprocessing and/or execution of the various data and/or componentsdescribed above.

It should be emphasized that many variations and modifications may bemade to the above-described embodiments, the elements of which are to beunderstood as being among other acceptable examples. All suchmodifications and variations are intended to be included herein withinthe scope of this disclosure and protected by the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: at least one edge computingdevice included in a multi-level distribution network, the multi-leveldistribution network including a plurality of subnetworks, the at leastone edge computing device configured to: determine a subnetwork in themulti-level distribution network based at least in part on a location ofa client computing device relative to one or more points in themulti-level distribution network, the client computing device havingrequested content and the subnetwork including a content source toprovide the content; and provide the content to the client computingdevice, the content obtained from the content source in the determinedsubnetwork.